Pathway to Japanese Literature

“Oh dear... It’s such an old story I’ve gone and forgotten all about it.” “If anything, I’d like to beg your pardon… Just some tale ’bout me gettin’ startled outta my wits, barely escapin’ with my life an’ scramblin’ back home...” “…Huh… That story.” “You mean that story?” “Huh.” “The story of how I almost became sausage—all thanks to this round-ass world…” “Gah.” “Man, was I shocked!” “Who’d you hear it from?” “Huh.” “From that gardener Roku... Damn nuisance, this.” “Went blabberin’ some worthless secret… That bastard’s flappin’ gums’ve gone plumb outta control…” “He heard it from my dead old man, damn it… When I never told a soul…”

“Heh heh.”

“This here’s quite the spread, I tell ya.” “To think I can sit here in this parlor I built with my own hands, gazin’ at the garden my work-brother put together, sharin’ a drink with the master—this here’s the craftsman’s crowning glory, I tell ya.” “Whoa now—this here’s Madam’s pourin’… No need to fuss over me… I’ll just help myself proper-like.” “Tsk—world’s too damn round.” “Heh heh heh.” “Whoa there… Spillin’, spillin’!”

“Well then, shall I try tellin’ ya the story from that grinding incident onward—how I came to understand why the world’s so damn round? Startin’ from the beginnin’... The grinding—that’s the sound of a machine mashin’ up humans with pigs and dogs to make sausages... Huh.” “It still exists in America today.” “You’re aware too, sir… heh heh… It’s the story of how yours truly here nearly got stuffed into that grinder—so it ain’t exactly a pleasant tale, I tell ya.” “In America, when they kill folks, they say they grind ’em into sausages to cover their tracks, see.” “Even now when I remember it, I shudder.” “This ain’t the kind of story that pairs well with sake… If anything, I’d rather beg your pardon right now…”

“Huh! “Madam says she’s ever so fond of such stories… Color me impressed, I tell ya.” “While listening to such stories—her eyes get pulled up at the corners and she turns into a proper beauty… Some newfangled cosmetic trick… Ugh!” “This has turned into quite the mess, I tell ya.” “As for my wife—way back when she went to see that long-necked monster exhibit at Suitengu Shrine and came home, that very night she got herself plagued by nightmares all night long… Ain’t nothin’ else to it, I tell ya.” “She apparently got worried her own neck was about to pop right off.” “…Yikes, she starts wailin’ in the dead of night about her neck comin’ off or some nonsense… Stupid woman—you think you’re some beauty worth losin’ your head over?... So I whacked her back once good, and finally she came to her senses.” “Seems that didn’t sit right at all… Ended up never becoming a proper beauty her whole life—what a waste, I tell ya.” Honestly. “Heh heh heh.” “The world’s a thing that changes when it changes, I tell ya.”

It was when I was twenty-seven—so about thirty years back now… A tale from around Meiji 30-something’s New Year, I tell ya. At that time, I was working for the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office, but come spring through summer, when the world’s greatest exposition was set to kick off in a place called St. Louis in America, there arose a plan from Japanese Taiwan to set up an oolong tea shop for promotion. Back then, they were all about imports—everything had to be imported—and it really got on their nerves that even something like tea couldn’t hold any sway unless it was made by foreigners… “Try promoting this oolong tea to the foreigners—far more aromatic than India’s finest, with an exquisite flavor”—that’s what Governor-General Baron Gotō Shinpei said at the time… Huh. So that so-called Baron gave the order, they say… Then he goes and tells me, “How about you go build a big Taiwan-style café at this exposition?” I was downright flabbergasted, I tell ya.

Not to boast, but I'm just a hammer-swingin' carpenter who barely finished elementary school... sparrows tweetin' and crows cawin'. A top-notch Edokko greenhorn who only knew kindergarten teachers from playground gossip, I tell ya. "Once you cross Hakone, even Japanese stops workin'—overseas travel? Never crossed my mind." When I went to Taiwan to build the Governor-General's residence, even then—that ship kept chuggin' across seas with no land in sight—I got this queer feelin' in my gut. Asked Engineer Fujimura who was leadin' us—man just laughed at me.

“Since the Earth is round, you don’t need to worry.” “No matter how far you go, you’ll surely end up back in Japan in the end.” “Huh, has anyone actually *seen* it?” “You don’t need to see it to know.” “And here you are—a Japanese man who ain’t got no backbone…” “Look at the Amakusa women… Girls who can’t even tell if the world’s round or square—yet they straddle the globe, play all sorts of races like puppets, rake in cash, and send it back to their parents in Japan.” “That’s something.” “There’s no corner of the world you can go where Amakusa women aren’t.”

“Huh… So that’s how it is.” “That about sums it up?” “Exactly.” “You’ll get it once you go overseas.” “Huh—so there’s really that many Amakusa women around?” “Can’t say if they exist or not, but in foreign parts—when they open a coal pit, gold mine, or rubber grove—Japanese Amakusa women always arrive before the machinery.” “Then those foreign bastards come sniffing after their backsides, tag along, and get to work.” “A town springs up.” “Rail lines get laid—that’s how it goes.” “Good or bad doesn’t matter—Japanese women start everything first either way. Now that’s what I call grit.” “Exactly why you’ll bump into Amakusa women when you least expect it.”

“Huh. “So what becomes of women like that in the end?”

“That’s decisively settled.” “When they truly come to understand the world’s roundness through that life, they return to Japan as proper women and settle into perfectly ordinary marriages.” "And... unless they’re that caliber of woman, in Amakusa no one would want them as wives—so it can’t be helped." “It’s like bringing a globe as part of your bridal trousseau, eh?”

“Well, something like that. “That’s why in Amakusa, there’s not a single spineless woman who’d go overseas without understanding the world’s roundness.” I turned red from the unnecessary embarrassment I’d brought upon myself. Even so, I managed to feel somewhat reassured.

Therefore, when it came time to cross over to America, I was quite composed, I tell ya. Among my companions… there were about fourteen or fifteen of us—carpenters, plasterers, including Roku no Oyaji the gardener… I’d show off the seventy-sen globe I’d bought in Keelung to that bunch, lecturing them on how small Japan was and such, keeping myself occupied. Amidst all this, when we noticed we’d been sailing endlessly over the sea day after day for what felt like an eternity—strange as it may seem—despite having grasped the logic of it all, we found ourselves growing uneasy. Even today, they say first-time overseas travelers often catch this ailment where their heads go all funny—might’ve even had a bit of fever for all I know. Though there was nothing particularly wrong, somehow it felt like everyone was being deceived and exiled to some island. Might we be sent to Sado Island to dig gold mines… With such thoughts swirling, nothing I ate tasted good at all. Maybe I’d just grown sick of eating that rice curry, stew, and croquettes day after day.

Amidst this, a variety show began on the ship. So it fell to me to perform the Suteteko Dance… and I was astonished to find that aboard the ship there was a flashy yukata with a three-square pattern—this being back when Danjuro was still alive—along with a red cotton loincloth, a surigane gong, taiko drums, and a shamisen, all properly prepared.

On the day of the show, they set up a stage in the middle deck's hall—big enough to hold five or six hundred people—where everyone from first-class passengers to us special third-class folks packed in together to watch. To start things off, this blond Western captain came bursting out and began performing Western magic tricks. It was pretty impressive, but then again you'd expect that. After that, some Japanese folks went up and tried their hand at Western magic too, but it fell kinda flat. Made-in-Japan still hasn't made much headway—magic tricks especially, I tell ya. Right in the middle of this, just as my turn for the Suteteko Dance came and I was about to stand up, along comes that gardener Roku no Oyaji. Back then he was already a bald-headed red-nosed old coot—ever since hearing my talk about the world being round, he'd been going out on deck every day like a broken phonograph record, circling around staring at the flat sea while scratching his head... That day too he was supposed to partner me in the Suteteko Dance, but there he came shuffling down from the deck still wearing his gaudy yukata and red loincloth, drilling holes into my face with his stare as I listened to the opening music, blinking those tiny acorn eyes of his all the while.

“I just can’t wrap my head around it no matter what.”

“What don’t you get?” “The whole logic ’bout the world bein’ round…” “You’re such an idiot… No matter how much I explain it, you just don’t get it.” “Weren’t you relieved when you finally figured it out after we crossed over to Taiwan?” “That was just you!” “I ain’t felt a lick of ease since then.” “It’s just so damn baffling.” “What’s so damn baffling?” “But I’ve thought and thought about it.” “How’s all this water stayin’ piled up on somethin’ as perfectly round as that globe…" “And on top of that, there’s these big waves crashin’ all over… yeah…”

Hearing that, my head throbbed at its core as I sank into thought. Though I talked tough, deep down I'd still been worried. Maybe that was the illness' doing, but having my weakness laid bare like that left me reeling with this off-kilter, absurd sensation—like my eyes were spinning in their sockets. Everything around me kept getting dimmer in this unsteady way that made me feel like I was blacking out... Next thing I knew, I'd collapsed right there. Weak-willed, that's me... Though truth be told, by then both me and Roku no Oyaji had already caught that damn illness together, so what could you do? Strange diseases'll pop up when they please, I tell ya. If it was epilepsy, you might call it earth epilepsy—but I don't recall any of that... Even I had to admit it was mighty peculiar.

So Roku no Oyaji—suffering the same affliction—took one look at me collapsing and immediately followed suit by collapsing himself, I tell ya… Then when someone panicked thinking “This is disastrous!”, the whole world flattened out completely—us being such undisciplined bastards and all… Thanks to that, our Suteteko Dance went straight to hell. Whoever started it, I can’t say—but to think they’d issued such an accursed decree as ‘The world is round’ to us humans who’d always lived on flat ground! Honestly, it was like we’d been snared by some Omoto-kyo divine revelation… And then, for about two weeks until we reached America, Roku no Oyaji and I were stuck groaning away in the upper deck’s sickroom.

When I later heard about it, our perfectly coordinated Suteteko Dance had ended with the two of us collapsing in unison. Our wildly out-of-place Suteteko Dance… apparently became the talk of the whole ship… and to make matters worse, the two of us kept spouting delirious nonsense like ‘It’s terrible! It’s terrible!’… so as a precaution, they drew our blood for testing—and what they found was horrifying, I tell ya. Traces of promiscuity remained plentiful in the blood. I believe they called it some poison like ‘idiot bastard’ or such. Huh. Since that Gonogokken test came back positive, they definitively diagnosed us with brain syphilis… and not knowing what else to do with us, we ended up getting confined. Moreover, the ship’s doctor must’ve been some shoddy quack of a bastard. In the midst of all that, they apparently figured out the real name of the illness...

Huh. So that's what they called the disease? "So... turns out Roku no Oyaji's was called 'Ditch Death' and mine was 'Parrot-Piss'... No laughing matter... Huh." Nostalgia... Nostalgia with Homesickness, I tell ya. I thought something was definitely off. It's no laughing matter, I tell ya. Both of us had fevers of about 40 degrees, I tell ya. After returning to Japan and inquiring about it, I learned it was some imported neurasthenia... They said the severe form was Nostalgia and the mild one was Homesickness—high-collar diseases really do exist, I tell ya. With our garish yukatas and red loincloths, and yellow headbands tied around our foreheads, we were groaning and moaning from Nostalgia and Homesickness—truly beyond help...

Even so, upon landing in America, both of us suddenly regained our vigor, I tell ya. Upon arriving in St. Louis, we immediately set to work on the framework. Following the blueprint provided by Engineer Fujimura, we built a Taiwan-style palace, and it was quite a hit, I tell ya. That was a photo of me and Old Nostalgia that got published real big in the newspaper, I tell ya. As for Old Nostalgia—being a gardener and all—the Japanese-style garden he built in front of that Taiwan Pavilion was a real smash hit… So they went and declared that bastard Old Nostalgia was a descendant of Sesshū or some such nonsense—left me speechless, I tell ya. As for me, my situation was even more absurd… I may look like this, but I’m particular about hatchets—can’t stand wood chips scattering around. So while tap-tap-tapping away at that splendid forty-shaku Oregon pine ridgepole I’d been working on from the start, I ended up scattering a continuous forty-shaku strip of wood shavings across the ground—and they say the foreign engineer watching me nearly had a heart attack from the shock. When that story made headlines across America, the trick boxes I’d crafted from Hakone woodwork to stave off boredom during the voyage had completely sold out even before the exposition officially opened. There was quite a boom with the rumor that Peepee Morgan—O-Yuki’s master—was coming to buy Roku no Oyaji, I tell ya. Westerners sure do get impressed by the most trivial things, don’t they. Heh heh heh.

Amidst it all, that Taiwan Pavilion—with its flipped-up gables and monstrous-looking gabled roof construction—got painted in reds and blues, and when the St. Louis Exposition was about to kick off, there we were—Old Nostalgia and Homesickness—the two of us decked out in these frock coats that looked like benshi uniforms, planted at the entrance day after day shouting at the top of our lungs the English phrases Mr. Fujimura had drilled into us.

“Japun Gabamen, Fuorumosa Uuron Tea, Wankapu Tensensu.” “Kaminkamin.” It’s no laughing matter, I tell ya. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what any of it meant…… At first, I figured the prankster Mr. Fujimura had taught us to say something like “right or left gentlemen” in English, but apparently that wasn’t the case either. “Great Master’s ‘Abokyaa Hyōei.” “Russia noo, Nakamura daa!” I’d considered whether this formal English was some Westerner’s exorcism chant or a prayer to placate wrathful gods—but it turned out not to be anything of the sort… When I finally asked about it much later, they said it meant “Japan Monopoly Bureau Taiwan Oolong Tea, ten sen a cup—step right up, step right up!”—so it wasn’t fit for warding off evil or curing ailments either, I tell ya.

Of course, had I understood the meaning of this ritual chant so early on, there might've been no life left in me. I could've ended up as imported sausage meat—reborn through some Westerner's shit and piss... Human fate's such a cockeyed thing—you never know what kinda twists'll come 'round to snatch ya, I tell ya. Truth be told, it was "Wankapu Tensensu" and that rice-bearing tree that became the parent of my life...

In any case, standing there in front of the Taiwan Pavilion shouting that gibberish at the top of our lungs with no clue what it meant, Westerners came thronging in. Inside the Taiwan Pavilion, handpicked beauties born in Taiwan served Eight Immortals banana-leaf biscuits while fluently lecturing in English about oolong tea. Those Westerners would give me and Old Nostalgia five sen or ten sen each time they entered or left. Occasionally there’d be those who gave a dollar or even five. On the flip side, you had others who’d turn away without giving a damn thing—acting all Jewish-like—but altogether, it made for some nice pocket money, I tell ya.

In the midst of all that, we came to understand bits of English. They called water 'wara'... so this 'wara-wase' nonsense must've started around then. The one who came by boat was Nabegeta. Easy to mistake teahouse chatter for straw sandals, I tell ya. Since women were 'ladies,' I figured men must be 'dere'—but turns out it's 'gentleman,' I tell ya. Makes you wanna be rude with logic like that, don't it? Wives being 'mum'... maybe wordplay on 'women are monsters,' but who's to say? 'Gurumon' for good morning—'Guru' works fine too. Like how Edoites shorten 'Konchwa' to 'Chyaa.' 'Gurunai' for good evening. Wanted to snap 'Katte ni shyaagare' at 'em... 'Sayōnara' becomes *Gurubai*... Why these hairy barbarians gotta talk in circles? Like beasts fresh from turning human... Then again, with 'hairy' in their name, their arms'n legs were shaggy as hell. Even the women had faces fulla bushy hair, bodies bumpy like plucked chickens—disgusting. Get close and they reeked like a zoo—unbearable, I tell ya. Call 'em 'raccoons' when they tipped us—men or women—and they'd beam like fools. Proves they're beasts through'n through.

However, this is the story of how I was subjected to cruelty by those Western raccoon bastards... Being beasts through and through, their malicious cunning was more than any Japanese could match. Inside the Taiwan Pavilion where we were drawing crowds, there were six Taiwanese girls serving tea, I tell ya. I’d forgotten their names—being thirty years ago and all—but they had these vegetable-seller-code-like surnames: Fun, Paa, Choki, Pin, Kiri, Geta. Every last one was a handpicked Taiwanese beauty, all seventeen or eighteen years old and fresh as dewdrops. From the very start, there was this ironclad decree: lay a single finger on those girls and not only would you forfeit your wages, but Baron-sama himself had ordered you’d be left stranded in America. What’s more, Engineer Fujimura wasn’t allowed to set one foot outside the exposition grounds either. In American towns, gangs and thugs called *gamen* were everywhere, committing robberies and kidnappings even in broad daylight. If they spotted someone timid, they’d threaten them with pistols and force them into serving as accomplices for grand theft or smuggling—so watch out. Once targeted by such scum, you’d never make it back to Japan alive—that’s what they kept mercilessly drilling into us, I tell ya. In a state like mountain wolves struck by Fudō-sama’s paralysis curse, they all just stood there biting their fingers and gulping saliva as they stared at those women.

Pitiful craftsmen who couldn’t get women—like canaries that’d forgotten their songs, I tell ya. Now I’m still young at heart, I tell ya—back then I wasn’t even thirty yet, a bundle of energy who wasn’t some blue-eyed celluloid doll. They dragged me to this mountain-hollow-like backwater of America where I couldn’t understand a word nor tell east from west, forced to shout myself hoarse every damn day while those beauties batted their eyes at me,

“Wankapu Tensensu.” “Kaminkamin.”

we were being made to do this—it was unbearable, I tell ya. Old Nostalgia and Omu-shikko's eyes were bulging so much we felt like Nanjing firecrackers about to burst any second—popping and crackling on the verge of explosion. Whether pitiable or foolish or whatever you'd call it—before we knew it—they'd concocted that unspeakable pair of "Formosa Oolong Tea" slogans. But then fortune smiled our way. See, even the top-tier girls among them—Pin-jo and Choki-jo—had fallen sick from Nostalgia or Oshikko or whatever, so as stopgap replacements came two new stunners—Chii-chii and Fui-fui—who'd supposedly been working at some Chinese joint in St. Louis. With each of us handling six tables apiece, losing even one meant we couldn't keep up. Perfect! This was manna from heaven—I thrilled at the thought. Eh? Exactly! With the old girls I couldn't have laid a finger on them proper-like—but these new ones? No problem there. And if they brought two new faces our way, we oughta get two ourselves—'cept one was that bald red-nosed Nostalgia fossil—hardly counts as competition. Youth and looks-wise—the real prize shoulda been ours by rights... "Which one first?" I schemed—playing clueless while chanting that "Wankapu Tensensu" spell for two-three days. Wouldn't you know—both Miss Chii and Miss Fui started batting their eyes my way together!

Heh heh... Well ain't this a fine how-do-you-do. Oops... It's spilling, it's spilling. I must apologize for all these lavish treatments and subjecting you to my self-indulgent romantic delusions, but I'm afraid this here's where the truly terrifying core of the story lies, I tell ya. Either way, I gotta get my story straight 'fore the wires get crossed—otherwise you'll lose the thread down the line, I tell ya. Heh heh... Much obliged, I tell ya. Between the two of them, this Fui-fui was a slender young girl of seventeen or eighteen with fresh, intelligent-looking eyes—but seems it was this lass who started batting her eyes at me first, I tell ya. Right from when she came to the Taiwan Pavilion, she had this look that seemed to want to say something and was gazing my way, I think. It seems that Chii-chii, the other girl, noticed this and stuck her oar in. Heh heh. Exactly right, exactly right. So a rivalry over me had begun, heh heh heh. Heh heh. I'd become quite the ladies' man... Best not pour oil on the fire. Ahh, so hot, so hot... No, no. I couldn't take any more of this... I tell ya. Couldn't have my tongue getting tied now... After all, there's an incredible story coming up next, I tell ya... Heh.

You see... this Chii-chii was one formidable piece of work, I tell ya. From what I heard later, she was apparently a mixed-race girl of Chinese and Italian descent—a real knockout beauty, I tell ya. On top of that, six tables were nothing—she’d say, “Bring me twenty or thirty!” She’d spout these grandiose boasts about handling everything single-handed, and right from the start, she was hated by her colleagues, I tell ya. She was no ordinary woman, I tell ya.

Well now... I tell ya. She must’ve been twenty-two or twenty-three at most, but with her completely rejuvenated appearance, she looked even cuter than Miss Fui at first glance—this girl who wore the same straight bangs as Miss Fui and dangled large pearls from both earlobes. From between her emerald-green satin clothes peeked first-class Chinese crimson undergarments whose hems fluttered provocatively, but what truly stunned me was the terrifying way she wielded those piercing sidelong glances... Even someone as composed as me was utterly captivated in an instant—though maybe "composed" is stretching it—but anyone who crossed paths with her would’ve been felled by a single glance, I tell ya. From the sidelines, Miss Fui seemed to be flustered and anxious, but once that happened, it was no longer an issue.

We exchanged a couple of inky splatters right there... Huh... Was that a wink?... My sincerest apologies. In America, ink goes over better... so I carelessly settled on that ink... When Miss Fui noticed, she frantically waved at me from across the table, but by then I was too absorbed to pay any mind. But the one thing I remember to this day—the sheer terror of Miss Chii’s glare when she turned to stare down Miss Fui in that moment—is still seared into my very bones. When that glare struck Miss Fui, she turned deathly pale and staggered unsteadily, nearly collapsing right then and there. It wasn’t until much later that I came to understand the terrifying meaning behind Miss Chii’s glare and completely trembled in fear.

That very night. I stealthily rose in the Taiwan Pavilion's basement so as not to rouse Old Nostalgia sleeping beside me, successfully slipping out of the pavilion. Then, keeping to our arrangement, I met Miss Chii by the fountain, bribed two night-shift sandwichmen behind the performance hall, climbed with her into a thin cloth-covered square box, flashed a hand signal to the entrance guard, and escaped the venue. Looking back now, I'd been set up as nothing but a convenient pair of sticks at that time. Not to borrow theater lines, but "blissfully unaware of impending death," I tell ya. This was no mere lamb to slaughter. I marched off to become sausage meat with such glee, I tell ya.

Once we left the exposition grounds, we were already in the sprawl of St. Louis—couldn't tell west from east of the fairgrounds, I tell ya. A flood of carriages and streetcars flowed through the depths of that sea of illumination, I tell ya. Back then, America didn't even have one-yen cabs yet, I tell ya.

Miss Chii, who was walking ahead of me, came to a stop beneath a dimly lit lamp post at a shadowy street corner about a block away, so I stopped beside her and lit a rolled cigarette. Soon after, a grand carriage drawn by two white horses arrived and stopped before the lamp post. But upon seeing it, Miss Chii suddenly stripped off her promotional outfit, flung it to the ground, then leaped into the carriage and began beckoning. So I too hurriedly imitated a woman and leaped into the carriage—and in that instant, Miss Chii, having lowered all the curtains around us, latched onto my neck with a smooch... Heh heh heh... My sincerest apologies. There was indeed the crux of it all… This smooch was like a purple stamp of approval branding me as sausage material… I tell ya, my vision truly swam—utterly so. A sweet fragrance permeated to the very depths of my innards, I tell ya. At that point, I couldn’t tell whether it was perfume or the natural scent of her skin. Moreover, in clear Japanese,

“My… you actually came, you.” And there it was— All coherent thought went flying off somewhere along with the hat stand—as unbalanced as a drunkard crashing a fire with shochu in hand… When the woman raised the screen some time later and I came to my senses, I was rather startled by how recklessly fast that carriage was moving, I tell ya. Our carriage was swiftly overtaking others, so traffic officers in gold-braided uniforms approached repeatedly from ahead, raising their hands as if to halt us—but when the silk-hatted driver with a black beard riding our carriage slightly raised his whip in what seemed like a signal, every single officer promptly turned about-face and moved on.

No matter if we turned right or left, no matter how far we went, it was always like that—so I gradually grew more puzzled—but when I heard about it later, it made perfect sense, I tell ya. That driver turned out to be none other than the boss... St. Louis's most notorious gang leader, a terrifying figure named Kant Deck. Turns out every last police officer in St. Louis was practically one of this Deck’s underlings—lavish indeed! And when I realized right then that both Miss Chii, the Chinese girl riding with us, and that other Miss Fui were all Kant Deck’s mistresses... well, I might’ve just gone cross-eyed on the spot. This was no mere commotion about the Earth being round, I tell ya.

Just as I was beginning to feel somewhat uneasy, the carriage came to a stop in front of a grand, brightly lit shop. There, Miss Chii planted another kiss on my grubby nape, then led me by the hand into the shop—which turned out to be a large record store. In the store’s grand hall—where magnificent wreaths and photos of what seemed to be popular male and female singers lined all four walls—hairy foreigners and Western women leaned against long benches arranged in a crisscross grid, feigning indifference to the records played by frock-coated clerks and shop assistants.

Being led by the hand through the wooden-brick-lined side passage by the woman, when I passed through the door at the far end, I emerged into a narrow hallway barely wide enough for shoulder breadth. The hallway sloped downward ahead, its floor entirely covered in black mats that muffled my footsteps as I seemingly descended toward the basement. After turning right and left within it and passing through three or four doors—just as I thought I had gone quite far down—the electric lights lining the corridor’s ceiling suddenly went out, plunging me into utter darkness.

That was the last time I saw Miss Chii's face... The next time I saw her was her smiling mug in handcuffs in the evening paper, and after that came her profile in a photo newsreel alongside Deck as they got their death sentences. Of course, I had no way of knowing such things back then. Even God didn't know... And with the woman letting go of my hand too... There I was left all alone in pitch darkness... I was done for, I tell ya. Good grief.

Even then, I still clung to my self-delusion—remarkable in its own way, I tell ya. So she'd played a trick on me after all... All right then... If that's how it is, I'll find my own way out... I groped forward like some game of blind man's bluff, and before I knew it, I'd passed through the door at the hallway's end and found myself in a grand room, I tell ya. When the lights suddenly blazed up in ambush, it was as if twenty or thirty suns had burst forth all at once—I nearly collapsed for real this time, I tell ya. After all, it was a room wall-to-wall with mirrors, every inch of the ceiling lit by floral electric lights.

I tell ya, I thought there sure were some splendid rooms in this world. If it were these days, rooms like that would be common enough in Ginza, so I might not have been particularly surprised—but then again... It was nothing but a room straight out of the Dragon Palace—cabinets, chairs, and tables all gleaming gold, filled to bursting with bouquets and wreaths—and there I stood alone, pitiful and out of place amidst that suffocating cloud of perfume. When I saw my own wretched figure reflected in the enormous mirror covering the entire far wall, I instinctively clapped a hand to my pocket. If I’d slept holding Miss Chii in such a splendid room, I thought my family jewels might get taken. Even after coming that far, I still had some syphilis taint lingering—impressive, I tell ya.

“Ahahaha.” “You mustn’t worry about money… Mr. Harukichi… Ahahaha…” Startled by a sudden burst of loud laughter, I turned around to find a gentleman in evening attire—a man of about forty—emerging from behind a large orchid leaf at my back. When I saw that gentle smile, I certainly felt I’d seen that face somewhere before, but try as I might, I couldn’t recall. I hadn’t realized that the coachman of the carriage we’d just ridden in had removed his black sideburns, so while I let out a relieved sigh—thinking he was probably one of the customers who’d given me extra tips back at the Taiwan Pavilion—the gentleman extended his right hand and, with an air of familiarity, narrowed his eyes further as he spoke while shaking my hand. Moreover, it was Japanese interspersed with broken phrases.

“...You... You know full well what sort of house this is.” “So let’s skip the tiresome chatter, shall we?” “We’ll speak only of business.” “This way, if you please.”

He beckoned me over to the giant silver vase in the corner of the room—a human-sized vessel overflowing with Ezo chrysanthemums that would’ve taken four or five men to budge. Yet the gentleman shifted it aside effortlessly, revealing two or three small holes resembling worm-eaten marks at the edge of the intricately patterned wooden wall behind it. When he inserted a key from his watch chain into one of these holes, the wall panel—about two shaku by two and a half—clattered open to expose a shallow shelf divided into ten compartments. Listening to that Western gentleman’s broken Japanese interspersed with hand gestures, this is what I heard:

“I want you to make this secret shelf open without using a lock.” “Materials and tools—I’ll have whatever’s needed procured for you immediately.” “You’re the carpenter who made those curious Hakone woodwork magic boxes sold next to the Taiwan Pavilion, aren’t you?” “So install a hidden mechanism here exactly like that Hakone woodwork.” “Then teach only me how to open it and return to Japan immediately.” “I’ll pay you a fortune—”

he said. Western carpenters are such clumsy, lowly sorts—apparently, even if you showed them an example, they couldn’t replicate delicate work like that Hakone woodwork.

However, I must've had a premonition at that moment, I tell ya—somehow... 'This ain't no good place I've come to...' I thought. My gut feeling came just a tad too late, I tell ya. Anyway...

“What’s this shelf even for?” “If I don’t know what it’s for, I can’t make it.” When I told him that... That Westerner—for just a brief moment—bared his blue eyes and made a terrifying face, I tell ya. But he immediately reverted to his usual gentle expression and, in the same charming broken Japanese as before, began gesturing with his hands. “This is a shelf to store bags of jewels.” “As I’ve long had a hobby of collecting jewels from around the world and take pleasure in it, I’m asking you to do this kind of work so that even if a thief breaks in, there’ll be no cause for concern.” “I’ll give you as much money as you want—a thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars.” “I’ll even include that girl for you—please, I beg you, take on this job.”

Contrary to his dignified appearance, he kept bowing obsequiously as he pleaded. “Since I own villas all across America, should your work here happen to please me, I’d want to make further requests at various other locations.” “I could provide wages sufficient to feed you for a lifetime.”

his face bright red, rubbing his hands together obsequiously as he bowed repeatedly. It seemed Kant Deck had thoroughly researched and devised a method to win me over from the very start, I tell ya. It seemed he thought any capable Japanese would fall right into line if you gave them money and bowed your head, but this assumption was unfortunately off the mark. Even "Ikura 'Wankapu, tensensu'" has its proper time and place. Unlike the Chinese, we Japanese have this thing called a sore spot, you see.

As I listened to Deck’s story, it suddenly hit me. So Chii-jo’s seductive glances were all a trick—this Westerner had used her as bait to drag me this far, huh? This bastard had set me up as some two-legged tool—tried to hook me with a woman and use me for his thieving scheming contraption! When I thought about it, this guy had barged into one hell of a situation. Moreover, having gotten this deep into it, there was no way I could return to Japan alive… But when I realized that, instead of my legs giving out, my spirits sharpened right up.

...I’ve got a strange disposition—when I’m patient, there’s no end to it, but once something lights my fuse, I go charging ahead like a blind bull… Damn Japanese fool that I am! As if I’d let myself be dazzled by money or pistols into helping some foreign highwayman with his thieving schemes! Not knowing what “fooru mo sa, uurontchi” meant, I suddenly tried grappling that Westerner and throwing him with a major hip toss. After all, I did have the skills of a Judo 2nd dan.

Huh. That was one gutsy move. That part, at least. But after that, I was utterly spineless...

Looking back now, it's a wonder I wasn't killed back then... Probably, if possible, he meant to intimidate me into meek submission and make me craft the shelf's hidden mechanism... He must've thought, "This here's Japan's top craftsman." Let this one slip away and you'd never find another who could manage such fine work... That's likely how his twisted mind reasoned—what a vile lowlife to take such risks. Even now, remembering it makes my blood run cold.

The moment I thought I’d grappled him, both my arms were firmly seized by Kant Deck. Moreover, the strength in those fingers was unbelievable. With a sensation like my arm bones were being crushed to pieces, my entire body went numb. I was made to realize I stood no chance whatsoever. After all, this was Kant Deck—one of America’s most notorious figures, said to have torn off handcuffs and escaped—so a mere Judo 2nd dan like me didn’t stand a chance.

Kant Deck bastard kept grinning without moving a single muscle in his face as he gripped my arms and made me vomit.

“You.” “There’s no need to get angry.” “I am Kant Deck.” “Please calm yourself.” “I’ll show you something interesting…” As he said this, he swung me around like a swivel chair to face the opposite direction, effortlessly lifted me up, and exited through the side door.

“No way, no way! I gotta stand in front of the Taiwan Pavilion again tomorrow and holler my lungs out—there’s a promise, see! Let me go! Let me go!” I thrashed about wildly, but it did no good. Whether it was the next room or the one after—I couldn’t rightly recall—but when they hauled me into some shabby little room, they made me look through a single-pane window set in the rough concrete wall at what lay beyond. Positioned all wrong-like, same as when you make a baby piss...

I stopped struggling and found myself staring dazedly. The state of the room across was so utterly inhumane that I was left completely appalled. Huh. It's rather hard to talk about that place... especially not with both parties present. Heh heh heh....

It was nothing at all. The scum that teemed in the puddle like tadpole spawn. They were all stark-naked humans through and through—I stood there gaping in disbelief. It was quite a spacious room though. Between large potted palms and olive trees and rubber plants—where settees and mats and cushions and furs lay heaped like tidal waves—these cloying naked vermin squirmed over and under each other in such numbers you couldn't recognize them as human beings. This wasn't some trifling commotion like loaches dumped in a goldfish bowl.

Strange, isn't it. Even while being shown such things, not a shred of lewd feeling arose in me. Even now when I think about it, I still can't make sense of how I felt back then. Probably, with a feeling like... a memento for the journey to the underworld, I must've been watching. Somehow it looked disgraceful and absurd, made me feel sick to my stomach, with a creeping chill in my side that left me inexplicably furious—and then that Kant Deck bastard pressed his mouth to my ear to hiss his words.

“If you want to go there, do your work.”

Once again, I began thrashing about with every ounce of death-desperate frenzy I could muster. The room was sweltering hot, leaving me drenched in sweat, but what with being pinned down by overwhelming force like Tachiyama the sumo wrestler—like a grasshopper caught by some lowlife brat—if I wasn’t careful, my limbs felt like they’d get torn right off.

“Then I’ll show you one more interesting thing.”

When he said that, this time he opened the low door opposite the small window and took me down along the iron ladder hanging there into a strange, dazzlingly bright spacious room. It wasn’t until after returning to Japan and working at Waseda University that I finally understood—that had been what’s called a mercury lamp. At the far corner of the room was a single dazzling electric light resembling an arc lamp, casting a strange-colored glow. Seen in that light, everything from Kant Deck’s complexion to the backs of my own hands appeared leaden gray—exactly like corpses’ skin. Even without that, I’d already been utterly drained of vigor and spirit from thrashing about in death-defying frenzy earlier. Dangling from Kant Deck’s one hand like a corpse with limp limbs, when I looked around, it seemed nothing but some factory’s basement. The space had become a sprawling room with a concrete ceiling and an alcove so low it threatened to graze my head, while on the clammy dampened tataki flooring lay neither desks nor chairs—not even a single speck of debris. There was just a large marble mortar-like object beneath the mercury lamp in the far corner, inside which an iron rod with motorized mechanisms protruding from the ceiling rotated gratingly over and over. In other words—it was a large custom-made meat grinder. This was the sausage-making apparatus I’d seen at the exposition.

However, being utterly exhausted and having lost all capacity to think, I had no idea whatsoever what that thing meant. ...Huh... Could the phonograph shop's basement have become a sausage factory? I've no idea. As I was dragged scraping across the concrete floor toward that mortar, I felt neither fear nor anything else.

But when Kant Deck seized my head and forced me to peer into that mortar, I instinctively shuddered and drew up my limbs. The mortar was naturally bottomless, and above its gaping hole spun a magnificently large meat grinder with jagged spirals gleaming like wolf fangs—their silver edges rotating with a grinding growl. Once you fell in, that would spell absolute ruin. From crown to rump you'd be mangled beyond recognition, so no revered sutra chanted over you could ever bring salvation.

“You.” “Do you like entering this… or will you work?”

Even someone like me... No, even if I weren't someone like me, I'd still falter. Even if I tried to muster some courage... "I don’t want this"... no matter how much I thought to say it, my whole body turned to concrete and started rattling and trembling—there was just no helping it. It may sound laughable, but just go there and see for yourself. It’s not something anyone could stay calm through so easily. I can’t even remember now what I was thinking at the time—I was probably on the verge of passing out. The only thing left seared into my single eye was that loathsome leaden glow of the mercury lamp... Downright terrifying, that gloomy, clammy light—it pierced me to the bone. If neon signs are the light of paradise, then mercury lamps must be the light of hell. Even living humans looked like corpses. Even now when I remember it, I shudder, I tell you.

At that moment, Kant Deck must have given some kind of signal. From the dimly lit area far behind, a door opened, and a large man clad in a blue workman’s jacket, his face covered in stubble, came out slowly pushing a trolley. I hadn’t noticed until then that a narrow-gauge track had been laid from the entrance to the front of the meat grinder... When the trolley being pushed by the man in the blue workman’s jacket came to a stop right before our eyes, Kant Deck removed the white cloth covering whatever was loaded on it. Then, when I instinctively cried “Wah!” and tried to flee, Kant Deck seized me in a crushing embrace.

It was the completely naked corpse of a young woman. Moreover, the blood that appeared to have bitten through her small lower lip with her front teeth—thickly smeared and caked from under her nose down to between her breasts—looked eerily like a sooty beard under the mercury lamp’s glare. To make matters worse, her right hand appeared to be clutching something precious—gripping it so firmly that she had pressed her left hand tightly over it against her chest in a pose that looked unbearably frustrating—but the way her black hair was cut straight across the forehead made her seem no Westerner by any reckoning. There was no doubt she was either Chinese or Japanese…

While I was thinking this, the large man in the workman’s jacket—when Kant Deck jerked his chin at him—immediately gave a single nod, rolled up the sleeves of his workman’s jacket, and thrust out his two hairy arms thick as my thighs. With those bear-like hands, he effortlessly undid the woman’s grip and forced open her tightly clenched right hand, from which emerged several folds of familiar pink Chinese stationery provided at the Taiwan Pavilion. Having received the unfolded letter paper, Kant Deck dangled it before my nose and grinned once more. He peered into my face with an expression like he was soothing a red-cheeked baby, you see.

It was a magnificent Japanese text written with brush and ink. It had likely been composed using Mr. Fujimura's inkstone case from the Taiwan Pavilion office. The characters were splendidly wrought, reminiscent of those found in the classical Hyakunin Isshu poetry anthology. "You must never go out with Chii-chan. Chii-chan is Chinese. She works for the American gang. I am a wretched Japanese woman who became entangled with gangsters alongside Chii-chan. Please inform my parents in Japan about me."

Born in Amakusa Hayaura “From Nakata Fujiko to Master Harukichi-sama”

When I realized the corpse was Miss Fui’s, I think I tried to lunge forward while shouting something. A strength I’d never felt before surged through me, nearly shaking Deck off, but he—still standing face-to-face—firmly seized my left wrist and grinned once more.

“Do you understand now?” “Will you work?” “What the—” I think I shouted something like that. Suddenly, unexpected strength surged through me - I managed to shake off Deck’s iron-vise grip and tried to leap at him like a fireball, but wasn’t fast enough. From behind, the man in the workman’s jacket grabbed me in a breath-stealing bear hug. Then, like tossing a stray pup, he effortlessly flung me into the arms of Deck’s evening suit.

Deck, having taken hold of me, bundled my biting and scratching hands and legs from behind and squeezed them tight. Then, after he'd uttered a few words in English, the hairy workman in the blue jacket lifted the woman's body from the trolley and tossed it unceremoniously into the meat grinder beside them. ...Huh.

The terrifying voice that came from the meat grinder at that moment—I will never forget it as long as I live. Miss Fui had still been alive. Probably, to save me—a Japanese—she’d betrayed her gang comrades and been tortured by Deck’s underlings until she lost consciousness. It seems I’d passed out right then and there.

“Japan! Pavilion! Formosa! Oolong tea! Wankapu! Tensensu!” “Kaminkamin!” Thinking I heard a voice calling from somewhere, I snapped my eyes open and realized I’d been thrown onto a floor strewn with straw bundles in what resembled a concrete horse stall. Crawling over to peer into the filthy bucket by the corner door, I found chunks of bread, water, and a milk bottle tossed atop a jumbled stew of potatoes and meat. ……So what did this mean? They probably hadn’t meant to kill me yet. They must have planned to drag me into their ranks and make me work if possible.

However, I felt neither happy nor sad about having been saved. Looking back now, my head must’ve gone completely out of sorts at that time. It might’ve been a continuation of my earth-roundness epilepsy after all, though. Unaware of where I was or what was happening to me, I kept muttering those delirious words—unchanged from what I’d apparently been reciting even before regaining consciousness.

“Japan! Pavilion! Formosa! Oolong tea! Wankapu! Tensensu!” “Kaminkamin!”

It seems I kept shouting over and over at the top of my lungs—habits truly are terrifying things. But thanks to this prayer chant, I managed to return safely to Japan like this—human fate’s a strange thing through and through… Huh….

Apparently, there was a great uproar at the World’s Fair. After I and two women went missing following a secret rendezvous, they made a fuss by involving the police and such, but there was no clue to be found. The pitiful one was Mr. Fujimura—apparently made to wear formal attire and stand before the Taiwan Pavilion in my place, forced to chant “Wankapu! Tensensu!” alongside Old Nostalgia until they found a replacement. While doing this for two or three days, his back pockets filled with clinking silver coins—which was fine—but his voice went completely hoarse, leaving him unable to use the telephone… No wonder, really. He’d never sung work chants or anything like that, you see. On top of shouting himself hoarse, he apparently worried himself sick too, you see… They probably thought I’d kidnapped those two women, but instead of that, the Taiwan Pavilion nearly got hit with damages from the Chinese restaurant we’d taken pains to help… Not that a carpenter like me’s the type for such audacious schemes—no, seems Mr. Fujimura fought tooth and nail to sort it all out.

Before long—what was it they called Saint Louis again?—a ghost began appearing late at night on the seventh-floor rooftop of a hotel on Menuki Street. Rumors began circulating among the hotel guests that this ghost was likely the Taiwan Pavilion’s missing tea-hawking man who had appeared in the Dōyara Newspaper. It was a ridiculous ghost story, see… There was no way a specter could appear when Harukichi was still properly alive, but those Westerners were hopelessly enamored with spooky tales from the start… They had this habit of turning trifles into full-blown hauntings, they say. And so that rumor scattered about aimlessly—miraculously slipping into Mr. Fujimura’s ears before the gang could catch wind of it.

“You… have you heard about that hotel’s ghost story…” “No, I haven’t.” “I haven’t heard it yet.” “Please tell me.”

“It began about a week ago.” “Around two in the midnight… when the streetcars cease running, a Japanese ghost in a frock coat appears by the flagpole at the center of that hotel’s rooftop garden.” “Look—right over there, a young, stylish man and a red-nosed bald man are standing, you see?” “They say the ghost appears looking exactly like that and says exactly those things.” “Oh, how scary… Really…” “It’s true, I tell you… That’s the very missing person from the newspaper… Look… When we came here long ago, he was standing right there, wasn’t he?” “They say it looks exactly like that man called Mr. Harukō.”

“Oh… The hotel must be in quite a predicament.” “On the contrary.” “Thanks to that, not a single person goes to the rooftop garden anymore, but instead, that hotel is packed with people coming to hear the voice, I hear.” “The police apparently don’t know yet, but everyone’s saying that Japanese man’s disappearance must be a first-class publicity stunt cooked up by that hotel and the Taiwan Pavilion working together.”

“Shh, I can hear it.” “To the Japanese…”

“Hmph. Those bastards don’t understand a lick of English. Just loyal slaves repeating their memorized lines…” Mr. Fujimura, who happened to overhear this conversation at a table near the entrance, counted on his fingers and found that it had been exactly eight days since I had gone missing. Mr. Fujimura, being well-versed in Western matters, must have immediately put two and two together. That very evening, he stayed at the hotel, and when he sneaked up to the rooftop garden around two in the morning, there it was—my own voice, pitifully faint, barely audible,

“Japaaan!” Gavaaaanmento o— Fooormo-saaa! Uu… ron… chiiiiiii. Wankapuu… U… “Tensensuu——…” He was apparently still chanting it. Thereupon, Mr. Fujimura—heart pounding—tiptoed toward the voice’s direction, only to find its source nowhere in the rooftop garden. As they say, when night deepened, it grew unmistakable—the voice drifted from a pitch-black little window in the seventh-floor corner of the May Flower Building across the way…

However, Mr. Fujimura—ever the America-savvy man—didn’t panic in the slightest. Putting on an innocent face, he returned to the Taiwan Pavilion the next morning and immediately asked Washington’s ambassador to contact a skilled New York police officer named Plaug, or so I heard. As it happened, this Officer Plaug had been diligently investigating the gang’s hideout. He promptly contacted New York’s police headquarters to borrow seasoned detectives and patrolmen, then stormed into Saint Louis. Without alerting local authorities, they surveilled the May Flower Building—only to find everyone coming and going were disguised ex-convicts. Finally pinpointing their target, Plaug’s squad of about twenty men sealed off every escape route. In no time at all, they raided the May Flower Building from basement to seventh floor without leaving a single corner unchecked. Both sides apparently had people getting injured or killed, turning into a commotion like a war for a time—but I knew absolutely nothing about it. After being carried out from there and laid in a bed at Saint Louis Municipal Hospital, I was apparently still chanting "Wankapu! Tensensu!" without change.

…Now, there’s still more to the story. This is where things get truly incredible.

I was finally discharged once my head had returned to normal thanks to every injection and nutrient imaginable, but by then it was already late autumn with the eucalyptus leaves scattered, and the World’s Fair had ended what felt like ages ago. Upon being discharged, I was immediately summoned by the police and underwent a mere formality of an interrogation with an interpreter present. After receiving travel funds from the consul, I departed for Japan from San Francisco—but it was during that journey that... It was certainly a fine morning—about the tenth day after we’d set sail, you see. The voyage was so dreadfully dull that even after my eyes opened, I couldn’t muster the will to rise. There I lay in my special third-class berth, stretching my legs out with a jerk and letting out one big yawn, when all at once I remembered the small paper-wrapped package I'd received as a souvenir from someone at the consulate whom I’d become acquainted with in San Francisco. Wondering what it could be, I took out that paper package from the basket under my berth and opened it—and what do you know. It was a flat sausage can…

Thinking I'd scored a bargain, I leapt up, bought a 52-cent Japanese beer from the dining hall, sat cross-legged on the bed, opened the can's lid, and began thinly slicing into the appetizing sausage's side with a jackknife—when something tangled itself around the knife blade inside. ...Hmm... this is strange, I thought to myself as I held the knife blade up to the dim window light—and there it was: a black woman's hair... I was startled. Even so—still thinking It can't be...—when I looked closely at the freshly cut surface of the sausage, there appeared to be something white and triangular-shaped wedged between the pale pink meat. Wondering What's this?, I poked around and pulled it out—and what do you know. It was a roughly triangular fragment of pale pink paper... having been wedged between red meat so long it had gone soggy—its color was no longer reliable, and as for the paper's quality—whether it was Chinese-made letter paper or something else—I couldn't tell for the life of me, but one thing was certain: that paper had been lodged in the same place as that black hair...

Even so—still thinking *It can’t be…*—I found myself in a mighty strange state of mind. The thought that Miss Fui—who’d taken a shine to me—had turned into sausage in my stead and followed me all the way here… Once that notion crossed my mind, well, it sure wasn’t any proper beer accompaniment anymore. My head got all scrambled up like sausage meat. I started feeling like I was steadily grasping the world’s roundabout logic... Really now... Huh…

...I tell ya... Truly, Madam... for all your kindness... I must take my leave now.